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Further Reading

OAKLAND, Calif.—As far as mass entertainment goes, giant robots smashing each other should be a sure bet. Turns out, there are a lot of kinks to work out first.

On Sunday, MegaBots, a Hayward, California-based company (approximately 19 miles south of Oakland) that builds these robo-gladiators, held its second live event. It was an experiment of sorts. Instead of a robo-battle, it was more of a droid demolition derby, with MegaBots flagship mech Eagle Prime smashing appliances, a piano, and for the grand finale, a Chevy Astro van.

Megabots hosted its second-ever live event in Oakland this weekend.

Chris Schodt

The star of the show was Eagle Prime, who smashed appliances and dismantled a van.

Chris Schodt

Matt Oehrlein is the CEO and Co-founder of Megabots.

Chris Schodt

These mechs are incredibly complicated and seem to require constant maintenance.

Chris Schodt

The kids there treated the pilots like superheroes.

Chris Schodt

Each mech is piloted by two people, a driver in the rear and an operator in front who controls the arms.

Chris Schodt

Once inside the cockpit, the pilots have nearly zero visibility and must rely on cameras to steer and aim.

Chris Schodt

Eagle Prime’s main weapon is a giant hydraulic forestry claw, designed for picking up entire trees.

Chris Schodt

The washing machine didn’t stand a chance.

Chris Schodt

The whole robot is powered by a Corvette V8 engine running a complicated hydraulic system.

Chris Schodt

This guy, for one, is ready to welcome our new robot overlords.

Chris Schodt

The event had a loose plot, with Eagle Prime battling to protect our private data from the evil “Zork Muckerborg”.

Chris Schodt

Eagle Prime’s other arm is equipped with a saw intended for digging trenches.

Chris Schodt

This saw was used to great effect to essentially core an Astro van.

Chris Schodt

Megabots is hoping to do more live shows, all working towards their goals of giant mech vs mech combat.

Chris Schodt

Standing tall in the Oakland sun.

Chris Schodt

RIP. Astro van.

Chris Schodt

"The long-term vision at MegaBots is to have robot battles in stadium-sized arenas," Matt Oehrlein, CEO of MegaBots, told Ars.

Previously, MegaBots had faced off against a Japanese team last year—but since then there have been no public demos.

"This kind of event is new for us," Oehrlein said. "We’re still testing things out and trying to see what resonates with the audience. This one was super scripted; we had actors and characters, a lot more theatrics."

The theatrics took the form of running patter on the robots themselves and their designs from both Oehrlein and another host and also a loose plot that wove through the event. Eagle Prime, the "Prince of Privacy" was battling the evil robot Zork Muckerborg, who wanted to steal the audiences' data.

But you don’t come to an event like this for the plot, you come for the bot.

Further Reading

Eagle Prime is a truly impressive machine, but once you see a giant robot in action, you quickly realize why huge mechs are generally found on film screens and not battlefields. The robot is slow. Extremely slow. Powered by hydraulics and a 430hp V8 Corvette engine, Eagle Prime can trundle across the pavement at a reasonable clip, but motions—especially the swings of its arms—take ages to execute. There was a fair amount of time just waiting for the mech to start moving.

Whether it’s a factor of the complicated hydraulics or the fact that the two pilots driving the mech can only see the outside world through external cameras, the mech’s movements were also clumsy, and it missed its targets as often as it connected with them. Which is a shame, because when it does connect, it’s thrilling.

We didn’t expect watching a mech crush a washing machine with a giant claw would be so entertaining, and when it jammed a giant chainsaw through the windshield of the van we wanted to cheer. There are the seeds of something amazing here, and with better controls and a faster pace it’s easy to imagine this sort of event becoming a phenomenon.

The giant robot duel of 2017.

Unfortunately, MegaBots has been frank about being nearly out of money, and at this point it barely has the cash to improve its mechs and sort out some bugs (Eagle Prime simply turned off without warning twice) or even just to keep the lights on.

Despite this, the Oakland event felt like a success. MegaBots may be able to use events like this to develop its brand and build an audience, and if nothing else we hope giant robots will soon be battling it out at a nearby arena.